Central
European University A Program
for University Teachers, Advanced Ph.D. Students, Researchers and Professionals
in the Social Sciences and Humanities Summer University
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Central
European University A Program
for University Teachers, Advanced Ph.D. Students, Researchers and Professionals
in the Social Sciences and Humanities Summer University |
          
since 19-09-2003 you are visitor no. |
Understanding Actions and Minds:Integrating recent advances from Philosophy of Mind, Cognitive Neuroscience, Psychology of Language and Communication, Developmental and Comparative Psychology, and Artificial IntelligenceJuly 5-16, 2004
go to [abstract] [syllabus] [course summaries] Course Director: György Gergely, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Developmental Research Institute for Psychological Research, Budapest Resource Persons: Paul Bloom, Yale University, Department of Psychology, Gergely Csibra, Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, School of Psychology, Birkbeck College, Juan Carlos Gomez, University of Saint Andrews, UK; Josef Perner, University of Salzburg, Department of Psychology, Csaba Pléh, University of Szeged, Department of General Psychology, Dan Sperber, Institut Jean Nicod (EHESS and ENS), John S. Watson, UC Berkeley, Karen Wynn, Yale University, Department of Psychology The summer course is going to provide an advanced-level research-oriented overview of recent advances in the interdisciplinary study of two central and closely related topics that are currently in the focus of interest in cognitive and brain sciences, philosophy of mind, the developmental, comparative, and evolutionary study of social cognition, and psychology of language and communication. 1. The first topic concerns the mechanisms and organizational principles involved in the production, representation, and interpretation of intentional actions in human and non-human organisms, pathological populations (e.g., schizophrenia) and artificial information processing systems. 2. The second topic concerns the study of the nature, development, and brain mechanisms of the inferential and representational systems specialized for understanding intentional actions and other minds in terms of causal intentional mental states (theory-of-mind). During the first three days of the summer course the participants will take part in the European Science Foundation Exploratory Workshop held at CEU.
Action interpretation and intentionality
Intentional agents
Intentionality, communication, and culture
Gergely Csibra
The course will review recent studies on how action interpretation, mental state attribution, imitation, emotion understanding, and self-awareness are achieved in the cerebral cortex. More and more data, from single cell studies in monkeys to neuroimaging studies in humans, suggest that these cognitive functions are subserved by specialized brain systems. The course will discuss these results in the context of both filogenetic evolution and ontogenetic development. György Gergely The course will review the available data on how young infants understand the actions they observe. Young infants seem to appreciate that the behaviour of agents are directed toward goals and predict their future actions accordingly. They are also very sensitive to communicative situations and, when these occur, tend to interpret others' actions as referential. The course will discuss the relation between these early abilities and (1) later "theory of mind" development, (2) similar capabilities of primates, and (3) neural correlates of mental state attribution in adults. Gergely, G. (2002). The development of understanding self and agency. (pp. 26-46). In U. Goshwami (Ed.) Blackwell Handbook of Childhood Cognitive Development,Oxford: Blackwell. Gergely, G., Bekkering, H., & Király, I. (2002). Rational imitation in preverbal infants. Nature, Csibra, G., Bíró, S., Koós, O., & Gergely, G. (2003). One-year-old infants use teleological representations of actions productively. Cognitive Science, vol. 27(1), 111-133. Gergely, G., & Csibra, G. (2003). Teleological reasoning about actions: The naďve theory of rational action. Trends in Cognitive Science, Vo. 7., No. 7. 287-292. Király, I., Jovanovic, B., Aschersleben, G., Prinz, W., & Gergely, G. (2003). The early origins of goal attribution in infancy. Consciousness and Cognition, (in press). Juan-Carlos Gómez
This course component discusses the issue of whether primates other than humans perceive and represent actions in a mentalistic way, i.e., if they represent others’ behaviours with properties such as intentionality and as controlled by mental states such as knowledge, desire, or belief. We will briefly review the recent history of research in this area with arguments for and against non-human primates’ "theory of mind". Using the case of referential communication as an illustration, I will argue that intentional perception (perceiving subjects as being about targets) may be a widespread property of primate minds, but the ability to purposefully manipulate intentional links between subjects and targets might be more restricted, specially in cooperative contexts. I will argue that currently there is evidence for a mentalistic understanding of attention and (maybe) "knowledge vs. ignorance" in great apes, but it remains unclear if they can understand "false belief". Such understanding may however be different in interesting ways from that exhibited by humans. Recommended Readings Povinelli, D. J., and Eddy, T. J. 1996a. What young chimpanzees know about seeing. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 61, 1-190 Povinelli, D. J., and Vonk, J. 2003. Chimpanzee minds: suspiciously human? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 7, 157-160. Tomasello, M., Call, J., and Hare, B. 2003. Chimpanzees understand psychological states - the question is which ones and to what extent. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 7, 153-160. Hare, B., Call, J., Agnetta, B., and Tomasello, M. 2000. Chimpanzees know what conspecifics do and do not see. Animal Behaviour, 59, 771-785. Hare, B., Call, J., and Tomasello, M. 2001. Do chimpanzees know what conspecifics know? Animal Behaviour, 61, 139-151. Gómez, J. C. In press. Joint attention and the notion of subject: insights from apes, children, and autism. In: Joint attention (Ed. by Hoerl, C., Eilan, N., McCormack, T., and Roessler, J.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gómez, J. C. (2004). Apes , monkeys, children, and the growth of mind. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. (Drafts of Chapters on Communication and Theory of Mind provided). Scerif, G., Gomez, J.C. and Byrne, R.W. (2004). What do Diana monkeys know about the focus of attention of a conspecific? Animal Behaviour. In press. Joseph Perner go to [detailed abstract]
Course contents are centred around the question of how understanding the mind, in particular, as responsible for generating intentional actions relates to improvements in self control (executive function).
Csaba Pléh
The course will concentrate on how the notion of animate action was shaped during early modernity, how it developed into mechanical views of actions as reflexes, and how these developments are treated to twentieth century issues about intentionality. Special attention will be paid to three aspects: a. The unfolding of the notion of automated action as related to a desantropomorphisation of human understanding b. The turn of century debates about the role of intentionality versus mechanical explanation of animal movement c. The relations between these events and recent theories of intentional action Dan Sperber
Modern pragmatics and in particular Relevance Theory, following Grice's seminal work, sees a speaker's meaning as an overt intention to cause a mental state in the hearer, and verbal comprehension as a process of recognition of such a speaker's intention. Verbal communication so understood presupposes strong metarepresentational abilities. Does this mean that metarepresentational abilities evolved in humans before language, and if so with what functions? To what extent and in which ways do properties of language reflect the role of metarepresentations in verbal communication? Are metarepresentational abilities enhanced by language, and, if so in which ways? The fact that human communication involves intentional action on the mental state of the audience and the recognition by the audience of these intentions entails a difference between comprehension and conviction, i.e. between recognising the communicators meaning on the one hand and accepting it on the other. Because of this, human verbal communication uses a variety of rhetoric tools aimed at persuasion, i.e. at causing not just comprehension but also conviction. Do some of these tools, in particular those having to do with argumentation, exploit metarepresentational abilities, and if so, how? Human culture is made possible by human communicative capacities. How do the actual mechanisms of human communication, and the role of metarepresentations in them, affect cultural transmission, and influence, if at all, the contents of culture? These are the questions that the course will attempt to answer. John Watson
The lectures will consider "the development of intentionality" from two perspectives. The first entails consideration of criteria for claiming that an organism has intention. Examples will be drawn from normal infants, abnormal children, and artificial life. Theoretical and methodological implications will be raised. The second perspective entails consideration of criteria for claiming that an organism perceives intentions in another. I will propose that this perceptual act can be approached as a sub-set of the general problem of studying if and how an organism perceives dispositional properties in external objects. Again, theoretical and methodological implications will be raised. Karen Wynn
Recent research has been investigating the core cognitive capacities present in infancy that provide babies with the foundations upon which to build an understanding the social world. In this seminar we will review this literature, with a focus on both (1) the origins and development of an understanding of others as psychological (intentional) agents (i.e., agents that have mental states such as goals and desires, and whose actions are related to their goals and desires), and (2) the origins and development of an understanding of others as social (interactive) agents that influence each other, interact with each other, and can have thoughts, emotions and dispositions about/towards each other. We will explore such questions as how babies identify intentional agents, how they identify and reason about the goals of intentional agents, and how they understand social interactions between distinct intentional agents. As we pursue these questions, we will also discuss how these initial foundations relate to the more elaborated theory-of-mind present in older children and adults. As part of this investigation, we will also examine recent work on the development of the 'social emotions' (such as embarrassment, jealousy, etc.) in infancy, exploring what these findings suggest about infants' developing understanding of, and ability to reason about, the content of others' minds.
[download this course description (.doc)] [brief description] [course list]
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